For overthinkers, one of the biggest problems they face is that they tend to go full detective whenever something happens.

“Who caused this?”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Was it always this bad?”
“What if it gets worse?”

Overthinkers want answers. A type of explanation to their suffering because they think it’s what’ll lead to peace. They want all the details and the reasoning as to why they’re the ones suffering.

I know because I’ve been there. And honestly, I still am sometimes, but if I’ve realized anything, it’s that even if you do get those answers, it’s not going to solve anything.

The outcome is typically going to be same the whether you get all the answers or not. The best thing you can do is to take action, and what some people have coined, ‘pull out the arrow.’

There’s an old Buddhist parable that goes like this:

There was once a man who was shot with a poisoned arrow. But instead of letting the doctor help him, he first asked…

“Before you treat me, I need to know who shot me. What tribe they’re from. What kind of bow they used. What the arrow’s made of. What kind of poison is on the tip…”

The doctor, despite his pleas to simply help him, he refused until he knew all the facts.

Spoiler alert: He died.

And that’s overthinking.

In the moment, it might seem like having the answers is invaluable to figuring out our problem, but a lot of times, we need to treat uncertainty not like a problem you need to solve, but a reality you need to accept.

So you got hit? Okay. Pull the arrow out.

Figure out how to stop the bleeding and treat the wound. Because the arrow—or problem—doesn’t care about how smart you are. It will just keep poisoning you and draining your energy the longer you wait.

Until next time,
Isaiah Taylor

Dive Deeper

What I’m Currently Reading - I’m still in the middle of reading Waller R. Newell’s book What Is A Man? A 800-page collection of 3,000 years of wisdom on the art of manly virtue.

Quote Of The Week - “A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.” — John A. Shedd